Finest Hour
by omegaalpha
Summary: Brendan's last, best hour


Finest Hour  
  
The Dragons had them surrounded, with more on the way. Brendan almost felt flattered by the attention. After all it wasn't every day the feared Drago- Katzov security machine rolled out the red carpet for a bunch of kludges. Still, all things considered, he could have done without their attentions.  
  
"We're cut off!!!" That was Ozzie, Brendan's second in command since his cousin Seamus had left. Not that Brendan blamed him really. If it hadn't been for him and his strange lady friend there wouldn't have been a global rebellion to begin with.  
"I know!!!" A person had to shout to be heard over the fire of the Dragons gauss rifles and the dwindling reply of the rebels Forcelances. The Forcelances had been another gift from Seamus' "Commonwealth" friends.  
Brendan had heard the story about the High Guard ship frozen in time inside a black hole, heck it had been one of his favorites as a kid, but the idea that it could be true wouldn't have crossed his mind if it hadn't been his cousin telling him. Not only had the ship actually been just where the stories said it was but there had been a survivor and not just any survivor. The captain of the Andromeda Ascendant, a man named Dylan Hunt, had been frozen with his ship for three hundred years.  
Brendan had thought it was just a crazy scheme cooked up by some con artist when he heard about how this Hunt was trying to restore the Commonwealth, but according to Seamus it looked like he just might do it. That was if the Dragons didn't wipe him, his ship, and his barely there Commonwealth off of the galactic map. Brendan had no illusions about why Hunt had been willing to back a rebellion on Earth. After all it wasn't like Earth was anything important these days, but if enough troops could be tied up here then that meant fewer to chase after the Andromeda.  
"Now what do we do?" The firing had increased to a deafening pitch and Brendan could barely hear Ozzie's question. What would they do? He could see the Dragon armor advancing on what was left of the rebels No way out through that, and the Dragon foot soldiers had sealed all the surface exits from the hill that they were standing on. Then he spotted it, an exposed sewer grate underneath the rubble that covered the rebels' last holdout. He tried to yell in Ozzie's ear to get everyone moving back towards the bolt hole but with the gunfire was finally so loud that it drowned out all sound. He grabbed him and drug him over to the grate while leaning as close to Ozzie as could manage.  
"Tell everyone to start falling back to this position!!!"  
"If we fall back the Dragons will rush us!" Brendan thought about it for a minute.  
"Ok so we do it this way. Only half of us move back while the rest of us cover them."  
'We're barely holding on with everyone shooting! If half of us leave the ones that are doing the covering won't stand a chance, they'll be massacred."  
"Maybe, but the other half will get away clean."  
"Fine just leave us as many working Forcelances as you can."  
"Who said I'm going?"  
"You have too! Who's going to lead these people if you're not there?"  
"You'll do fine, trust me. But you're right, get as many volunteers as you can and give them all the Forcelances we have left. I'll be up to start the party in a minute." Ozzie looked at him for a split second and said  
"You're crazy!! You know that, Just crazy!!" But he moved off to gather up volunteers. As he watched Ozzie leave Brendan looked out over the burning hell that was Boston and slowly his eyes were drawn up by the rising sparks. The stars glittered through the hazy, polluted sky above him and the longer he watched those points of flickering light the less afraid he became until there was nothing but peace.  
"Well cuzo. We had a good run while it lasted." Just then he felt his boot scuff over something. Stopping to bend down he picked up a crumpled Flexi.  
"Now where did this come from?" he wondered aloud in the din of the approaching battle." just as his hands began to smooth it absently. The beep of the Flexi coming to life startled him out of reverie.  
'I wonder?" He thought as he pressed the record icon.  
The words had flowed for him in a way he hadn't imagined. For once he said everything he had wanted to be able to say his whole life. He vaguely remembered someone, maybe Ozzie patting him on the shoulder, whether for luck or for goodbye he would never be able to ask.  
"Here kid." He stuffed the Flexi into the hands of a passing refugee. "See that Ozzie gets this" Then he turned and looked up at the lightening sky in the east and with his trademark grin drew his last Forcelance and headed toward the sound of freedom. 


End file.
